Bridget Rover Side View

A rover named Bridget (provided by Astrium, Stevenage in the UK) is being tested in the Atacama Desert close to ESO's Paranal Observatory. Bridget is part…Read More »

of the SAFER field trials — Sample Acquisition Field Experiment with a Rover. Image released Oct. 14, 2013. Less «

2 of 8

Mars Rover Tested Near Paranal Observatory

Credit: ESO/G. Hudepohl

Bridget the rover, pictured here with Paranal Observatory in the background. ESA's 2018 ExoMars mission is acting as the reference mission for the trial. Image released Oct. 14, 2013.

3 of 8

ESA's Rover Tested

Credit: Mark Woods/Scisys

A rover named Bridget (provided by Astrium, Stevenage in the UK) is being tested in the Atacama Desert close to ESO's Paranal Observatory. Image released Oct. 14, 2013.

4 of 8

ESO Engineers Inspect Bridget Rover

Credit: ESO/G. Hudepohl

A rover named Bridget (provided by Astrium, Stevenage in the UK) is being tested in the Atacama Desert close to ESO's Paranal Observatory. Bridget is part…Read More »

of the SAFER field trials — Sample Acquisition Field Experiment with a Rover. Image released Oct. 14, 2013. Less «

5 of 8

SAFER Rover

Credit: Astrium/E. Allouis

The Bridget rover, supplied by Astrium Stevenage in the UK, was used in the five-day SAFER field trial in the Atacama Desert, fitted with prototype ExoMars…Read More »

instruments. It was fed instructions from a Remote Control Center based in Harwell, UK. Less «

6 of 8

Video Wall in Remote Control Center

Credit: SCISYS/Mark Wood

The rover being tested during the five-day SAFER field trial in Chile’s Atacama Desert was overseen from a Remote Control Center in the Satellite Applications…Read More »

Catapult facility in Harwell, UK, with a video wall used to display data from the rover and digital maps in order to plan its activities. Image released Oct. 16, 2013. Less «

7 of 8

Rock Upended by Bridget Rover

Credit: Astrium/B. Allouis

A valuable element of ESA's five-day SAFER field trial in the Atacama Desert was its unpredictability: a flat rock that was suddenly flipped by the passage…Read More »

of the rover’s front wheel to potentially threaten Bridget’s clearance was one unexpected problem – providing useful food for thought for rover designers and operators. Image released Oct. 16, 2013. Less «

8 of 8

Digging for Bedrock in the Atacama Desert

Credit: ESA/Michel van Winnendael

The SAFER field trial in Chile's Atacama Desert used ESA’s ExoMars rover as its reference mission, which will include a drill to probe beneath the surface…Read More »

of Mars. SAFER’s test rover was not equipped with a real drill, however, so the field team had to dig a hole in the white area of the SAFER Valley test site to reach bedrock for sampling. Image released Oct. 16, 2013. Less «